Story Time
So here is Johnny's first post to the recipe blog! As noted in the hummus recipe, we also make our own homemade pita. But after a few weeks of pita and hummus we thought to ourselves, "Why just stick to unleavened breads?" And thus a great adventure in baking was set upon and we have not gone back since. While there are plenty of breads that I would love to share with you (and I am sure I shall share in further posts) the one I want to cover today are these amazing rolls that I stumbled upon quite by accident.
I found myself one day needing to provide a little something extra to go with dinner that evening and I was at an impasse. Low on ingredients to provide a casserole or a dessert and too lazy to drive out for more, I decided that I might as well make bread. That way I could goof off and play video games while it rises! But oh no! I do not have a clean bread pan and dish soap was another thing I was missing! Not one to give into defeat at this point, I looked towards my clean muffin tins. I thought to myself, "Okay, small bread then! Wait, those are called rolls! Perfect!" And thus I prepared the recipe that you will see below. However I came to a startling issue as I finished making my dough! I had too much of it for these tins! Or so I had thought. Listen, I'm from the deep Southern United States and when I think rolls, I think crispy little butter rolls, nothing fancy. But I knew I had to do something. Thus I rolled up balls of dough and places one into each tin slot round-robin style until I had filled them all. Luckily I had just enough dough to put 3 little balls into each slot. I patted myself on the back and concluded that I was obviously a baking genius, forged in the fires of young adult panic-cooking. It would not be for another few weeks that I would discover that this style of roll is in fact called a cloverleaf roll! Furthermore I looked through my various cookbooks and found that this was in fact a very well established thing! So much for genius right? Well perhaps I simply tapped into the collective consciousness of cuisine, after all hungry folks think alike! Anyways, I hope you enjoy! Bon appetite!
Ingredients!
- 5 cups flour
- 1 packet dry yeast
- 1 cup warm water (not too hot or it'll kill the yeast!)
- 1 cup scaled milk (let it cool to warm)
- 1 beaten egg
- 1 stick (4 oz.) of melted butter (I use sweat cream unsalted)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 2 6-cup muffin tins
Instructions!
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| A candid shot of the baker in his natural environment. |
- Dissolve the yeast packet into the cup of warm water and let sit until it foams. I use a Kitchen Aid mixer with a bread hook, so I mix the yeast right into its bowl. If it has not foamed a little by the time you've heated up your milk in a pan then your yeast might be dead (oh no!). Say a few words for the poor little microbes and go get newer yeast.
- Add the milk, sugar, melted butter, salt, and beaten egg to the yeast and set your mixer on low speed.
- Now you want to add your flour to the mix, slowly and one cup at a time until you have an elastic and somewhat sticky dough. If it seems too sticky just add a little more flour in! If you are impatient here, I recommend getting a cover for you mixer so you don't get flour everywhere!
- On a floured surface (with floured hands!) you want to knead the dough for about 5 minutes before putting it into a buttered bowl, cover, and let rise for about an hour until it had doubled in size.
- Play video games, do dishes, or watch a David Attenborough nature documentary while you wait. I swear watching Birds of Paradise dance to Sir Attenborough's voice makes the bread taste even better.
- Punch down the dough and get out your buttered muffin tins. Add three one inch balls to each of the cups. I like to round robin this step so I make sure I don't end up with too big of dough balls in my first cup and teeny tiny ones in the last! You will want to cover it and let it rise for another 30 minutes here. (I once let it rise for an hour and a half by accident, still tasted really good, they were just nearly unmanageably big!)
- Goof off again! You've only got 30 minutes this time so you might want to just watch some Will It Blend, Lets Play, or Vlog videos on Youtube. I personally recommend Cooking With Dog, I promise it is much nicer than it sounds!
- Heat the oven up to 425 F, brush some butter on top of the rolls, and bake for 10-15 minutes (10 is usually enough for me, but yeah your oven might be off a little! Or maybe its mine...)
- Pull those soft delectable rolls out and enjoy! If you have trouble removing the rolls, let them cool for a little and they should pop right out!
How to enjoy!
Butter those suckers, cover them with jam, dip them in broth, peel them apart and enjoy them by themselves, the great thing about rolls is you can do just about anything sweet or savory with them as long as you are willing to give it a try! I've found these rolls to be tasty warmed or cold so don't feel ashamed when you find yourself sneaking one out of the fridge to snack on the next day!
